Babette Deutsch Quotes & Sayings

History
Coming too close
Is monstrous, like a doll
That is alive and bigger than the child
Who tries to hold it. — Babette Deutsch

Poetry is the fiery index to the genius of the age. — Babette Deutsch

Poetry is important. No less than science, it seeks a hold upon reality, and the closeness of its approach is the test of its success. — Babette Deutsch

There is no end to grief. Nor no end to poetry. — Babette Deutsch

The difference between Pound and Whitman is not between the democrat who in deep distress could look hopefully toward the future and the fascist madly in love with the past. It is that between the woodsman and the woodcarver. It is that between the mystic harking back to his vision and the artist whose first allegiance is to his craft, and so to the reality it presents. — Babette Deutsch

How to sustain the miracle
Of being, that like a muted bell,
Or like some ocean-breathing shell,
Quivers, intense and still? — Babette Deutsch

The poet, like the lover, is a person unable to reconcile what he knows with what he feels. His peculiarity is that he is under a certain compulsion to do so. — Babette Deutsch

Who, except the poets, reads poetry? — Babette Deutsch

The poet who speaks out of the deepest instincts of man will be heard. The poet who creates a myth beyond the power of man to realize is gagged at the peril of the group that binds him. He is the true revolutionary: he builds a new world. — Babette Deutsch